Quality broadband...when???

Sen. Sonny Angara wants to prepare Filipinos for post-pandemic digital jobs in the gig economy. It is a good idea, but first things first... give them reliable and quality broadband connection.

To some extent, we have that in Metro Manila so long as you are willing to pay the price for it… like the call centers. Most middle class homes, however, can only afford broadband packages of at most a thousand pesos a month. That’s ok for normal personal use excluding streaming on Netflix.

But as we experienced over the last two months working from home, it isn’t enough. We survived, but long term we need better priced and dependable broadband as work from home becomes more common.

And that’s for Metro Manila… we are the lucky ones.

There are still many parts of the country with hardly any signal at all and those are the people who need good broadband to survive. Batanes, for instance, has awful connection in my experience.

Everyone is waiting for government’s overpromised National Broadband Network, but it seems a year or two away.

The high demand for broadband was demonstrated during the coronavirus disease 2019 or COVID-19 lockdown. Smart Communications noted that its mobile data traffic doubled YoY to 636 petabytes as more customers turned to mobile video and social media apps.

Consequently, Smart’s service revenues grew 20 percent to P20.2 billion in the first quarter this year, with data increasing its share to total wireless consumer revenues as it rose to 72 percent from 65 percent last year. PLDT continues to expand and upgrade its fixed and wireless network to support the growth of mobile data traffic.

As of the end of March, Smart increased the number of 4G/LTE base stations to 26,000, while PLDT’s fiber infrastructure is now at 338,500 kilometers nationwide, five percent more from end-2019. But there is so much more expansion required specially in hard to reach areas.

As Sen. Angara noted, as of March, The Speedtest Global Index which records the broadband speed across the world by country, put the Philippines at 104th in the world, with a download speed of 23.80 Mbps. We rank even lower when it comes to mobile internet, coming in at 116th place with 14.24 Mbps.

“As we begin to rely more on the internet and things online to ride out the COVID-19 outbreak—and, perhaps, to adapt to the post-COVID culture—we should enhance broadband internet services across the country,” the senator said.

“We are already using online services and platforms to buy food, clothes, and other items. We can now go online to pay our bills and access other financial services. For our students, the pandemic has also opened the door to online education. With all these happening, our country’s online capacity must be improved.

“E-commerce will also play a big role in our post-COVID-19 society. Surveys included in the TWG-AFP draft show that almost 80 percent of respondents in the business sector would have zero sales if the quarantine is further extended by another month.

“This is why the expansion and further development of cashless payment systems and other similar platforms will be a big boost for retail, information technology, and business-process management companies,” the senator said.

Having a third telco compete with the duopoly is supposed to spur competition and hasten capital expenditure in expanding the broadband coverage in the country. But as we are now seeing, it is not happening fast enough. Government must hasten progress of its National Broadband project.

Government is the largest consumer of broadband services. Connectivity of government offices, including far flung areas, is essential for good governance. It is also imperative during calamities or emergencies like what we have now.

Typhoon Ambo showed how inadequate government’s ability to warn residents of difficult to reach places of the typhoon’s path. In the past, these areas depended on ABS-CBN which has heavily invested in its broadcast infrastructure to the point that it is the only source of news for many areas in the country. Last week, many residents on Ambo’s path were anxious for news.

I asked DICT Usec Eliseo Rio Jr. about the NBN project and he said it is progressing, but was not clear when people are actually going to start benefiting from it.

Usec Rio said “DICT will use the 2Tbps bandwidth capacity that we will get from FaceBook for letting them use our Luzon Bypass Infrastructure. The  FB bandwidth will be connected to the Baler, Aurora Cable Landing Station (CLS)  by late August or early September, and it will be brought to the second CLS in Poro Point (the first time the government will own and operate two CLS) where it will be connected to the 7,200 km dark fiber of NGCP which will be our backbone.”

The NBN, however, will just be the highway. To be useful, government must enable small telco players, ISPs, CATV operators, community cooperatives, etc, who are interested in investing in the middle and last mile, in exchange for government bandwidth from FB.

Rio said DICT “will post in our website an invitation to interested parties to submit LOIs to do middle and last mile in various parts of the NBP, and sign an offsetting agreement. We will be leasing existing middle and last mile where needed and pay the lease also in an offsetting arrangement.

“These small players will be monetizing the bandwidth that they earned from the government because their subscription cost will be much lower than the big telcos. So indirectly, the NBP would be competing with the big telcos, but it will definitely bring down the cost of fast and reliable internet connectivity in this country.”

Well… that’s the plan. How fast DICT delivers is something else.

If you ask Sen Angara, DICT can’t deliver soon enough. “It is time for our country to have a serious discussion with all digital stakeholders on how to not only expand our broadband Internet capability, but also what we can and should do to take full advantage of such digital infrastructure,” the senator said.

No arguments there, Mr Senator. The ball is on government’s court.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco.